December 7, 2009

A friend sends this article from the U.K. Daily Mail by Amanda Platell about problems women have being good bosses.

I was a good manager of people, but a lousy risk-taker. With our typical propensity for multi-tasking, I was more comfortable doing ten things at once and keeping all the balls in the air than what was really needed, to focus on one task and nail that ball in the back of the net.

He wonders why a provocative, but also well-balanced, insightful, and interesting article like this one would seldom be published in an American newspaper. Is it being sold via subscription rather than on newsstands that makes American newspapers duller? Or is it because Fleet Street journalists are drunk all the time?

56 comments:

I went from a terrible male boss (champagne-socialist, character-destroying petty tyrant) to a good female boss (laissez faire, well meaning classical liberal,a bit naive about the cultural Marxists in her Dept), but maybe academia is different to the private sector. Likewise, I work with the local police Safer Neighbourhoods Team and the sergeant seemed like a good boss too, she got promoted out recently. I think it may be the profit-centred corporate environment that is particularly unsuited to the female management style.

Fleet Street journos were legendary for their drinking. But most of the papers have now left Fleet Street itself and its pubs no longer host druken journalistic afternoons. The journalist tribe has been scattered to various offices and installations around London, so the hard core drinking culture has died.

After working with professional women at high levels, I have to say that I think that part of the problem is that women are not as smart as men when it comes to strategic and abstract thinking. They operate mostly by rote and miss the big picture many times.

I've got a woman supervisor at my job. The man she replaced hid in his office most of the time. Whole weeks would go by without my ever seeing him. He only dealt with problems long past the point where he could no longer ignore them.

His female replacement, on the other hand, is more 'proactive'. She has made a point of walking through the office every day and saying "hi" to everyone. She tries to affect a cheery tone. She comes in early and stays late. She has convened monthly "team meetings" where the latest developments are discussed -- this in contrast to her male predecessor who did not communicate anything.

The interesting thing is, the new female boss has strived to address the grievances that people have had -- but people (especially the women) hate her for it. Could have something to do with the fact that she is relatively physically fit (she's a Pilates nut -- she goes straight to the gym after work) and attractive. The theories the other ladies offer for how our supervisor got promoted would be shocking if a guy uttered them. Women of menopausal age are vicious.

The Mail is often quite populist and focuses intensely on the kinds of issues the Westminster village (in the US one might say "the DC cocktail party") prefers to bury. So stories about immigration and multiculturalism are very regular, as are articles asking whether working women can have it all or whether they face inevitable trade-offs a lot more than men. Which isn't to say it's a British National Review: the paper is also more sceptical of foreign interventions than the typical Tory MP, and keen to attack salaries for the highest paid in a way that Labour MPs are mostly too embarrassed to do.

Unsurprisingly, the Daily Mail is a roaring success, selling better than any newspaper in Britain except the Sun - it sells especially well to women. It is loathed by the fashionable left in particular. But as a voice of Middle England, it does a fantastic job.

Are you kidding? It's like asking why isn't the correlation between race and crime -- or the correlation between race and IQ, or the correlation between race and a number of other things -- not on the front page of your local metropolitan newspaper?

Why isn't an article questioning the ability of women to lead published in American newspapers?

Using the term"multi-tasking" is just a way of dressing up things that are mundane. Chewing gum and walking down the street is now to be known as "multi-tasking". Also, female bosses are not mean and petty because they think they have to outgun the men, they are that way right from the outset. Throw in some menopause and you've got a great work environment. Reality, now and then, peeks out through the waterfall of feminist blather.

Brits seem to be more naturally witty and verbal than Americans on average, average British IQ may be higher due to a smaller minority population, and there may be more editorial input from journalists/editors and less of a "target the mass market demographic for profit" mentality clodging otherwise crisp copy. I always pick up UK InStyle magazine, for example, rather than its slightly lower-brow US counterpart. The Brit press is also free of some of the cultural and ideological baggage of the US press, allowing it to make more objective reports. In his documentary on the Katrina disaster, Spike Lee was outraged that a touching BBC story about a poor black woman dying was--presumably after considering the ratings effect of a sad story and the implications for the race debate of presenting in images an actual poor black family--screened out of the american tv news. It's possible that the Brit press, collectively, is more strongly grounded culturally than the american press and less susceptible to some of the major ethical compromises (now taken for granted like political campaign donations for legislative favors) which have made american media more of a power and profit game than an exercise in truth seeking.

And that is *EXACTLY* why women shouldn't be "bosses". OK, we've seen lately that risk takers aren't all they're cracked up to be. However, women might be OK as middle managers, where they can rely on a bloated, doctrinaire, feminised bureaucracy to keep the rank-and-file in check. But they have no business making the big decisions. They strive for consensus and security, rather than quickly weighing the facts and making the best decision (they want the 100% plan, whereas a 70% plan vigorously executed is almost always better).

There is a tremendous gulf between managing and leading, which is what bosses should be doing.

While its bad in enough in the business world to have women "bosses", it's catastrophic in the military.

In my limited experience, the British still seem to enjoy some playful competition between the sexes, with men making some disparaging comment and women huffily trying to disprove it. I think that's fallen out of favor in the U.S., and rightfully so in my opinion. It's just too annoying to hear the same tired arguments on both sides for the nth time.

Breaking that rule, the biggest problem with women in the workforce is they don't fall into the hierarchy as well. Men tend to naturally unite against a co-worker who's out for themselves too much. But with too many women that cohesion goes away, and it's everyone for themselves.

I couldn't make it through the whole article; I hate the Daily Mail, it's such an irredeemable rag. Reading it you'd think England was entirely peopled with white trash - and Muslim terrorists.

As far as it's claims go - that women are more risk averse and scatterbrained and more compassionate - feminists will always argue cultural constructivism. They won't change their minds until their experiment has been followed through with absolute fidelity to its utmost conclusion (same with all other leftists). This argument isn't close to over.

Men can like a woman boss, but seldom respect her in that position. Conversely, men can dislike a male boss, but hold respect for his authority. Women bosses seldom attrack natural authority.

RE: Tiger, is he another O.J. who won't touch women of his own race? All his "conquests" appear to be white. He has shown that he is fundamentally dishonest - so did he cheat at golf also? Steroids anyone?

In the fed agency I worked for, I didn't really see much moody and indecisive. The big problem was an exaggerated Peter principle. The capable women were promoted so quickly to meet affirmative action targets that they frequently got to a level where they couldn't perform well.

Steve,What do you think of the findings of both Rushton and Lynn where they posit that men are smarter than women on average?

I saw a chart somewhere that I need to look for based on some of these numbers that showed that there are not more dullards among men than women as is commonly believed. It even took into account that men have more variance.

As to Tiger Woods (again). There is something seriously wrong with him as I don't think he's stupid. Unprotected sex (and lots of it) with floozies while his wife was pregnant. He didn't care about his health, his wife's, or even his children's.

"Right off the bat the authoress tells us that women aren't 'nasty' enough to be effective bosses. No point reading beyond that point."

Maybe it's a cultural thing. Ever notice that successful British people are expected to be generally better-behaved than their American counterparts?

So, a British woman may have a harder time being outgoing and bossy than an American woman. The former may be restrained by a greater sense of social form and decorum.

This was evident in the recent BBC debate with Nick Griffin. Nick had none of the fervor of Pat Buchanan, swagger of Rush Limbaugh, or blase FY demeanor of David Duke. He seemed to eager to please, to be such a good boy asking, 'can I have a little more, oh please, sir?'

I once knew this Japanese-American guy who was pretty out-going and social--fully Americanized. He said when he visited Japan, it was like living in a social prison. So many social do's and don'ts that raise eyebrows. Though much has changed in Britain, especially among the lower classes, it seems as though there is still a kind of straitjacketedness in respectable society. It's not enough to be successful and powerful; one has to have the right Form.

"What do you think of the findings of both Rushton and Lynn where they posit that men are smarter than women on average?"

On average, there's almost no difference. Women have smaller brains overall but not in proportion to their smaller bodies. Also, female brains have more folds than male brains--female brain space is used more efficiently. The notion that bigger brain equals higher intelligence is somewhat dubious. American Indians and Mexicans are of Asiatic origin and have larger heads in proportion to their bodies than whites, but I don't think whites are less intelligent than the descendants of Geronimo.

Women in general have one advantage over men in that women's hormone levels are lower. So, women are less likely to cause trouble in school and get kicked out. No wonder then that 75% of all black college students are female. Not because black girls are smarter but because they are less out-of-control than black boys. Same is true of white girls and white boys. More white boys flunk out of school and fall by the wayside. One could argue that Asian success in schools is feminine-ish. Asians are less likely to act crazy and out-of-control. Even Asian men tend to be more feminine-ish. This may explain why Asian males, though successful academically, don't get much respect. They are seen as wussy. There was some of this sense in the movie BETTER LUCK TOMORROW.

On the other hand, GREATNESS in science, arts, philosophy, and etc aren't just about intelligence but drive, vision, craziness, passion, obsession, etc. Men may accomplish more GREAT stuff than women because the higher hormone levels fill men with greater desire to conquer, dominate, discover. Einstein, for example, was an obsessive guy. So was Picasso. Had their hormone levels been drastically lowered, they would have been just as smart but less crazily driven.

Since women are emotionally less crazy--or less aggressively crazy--, they tend to accomplish fewer GREAT things. This has been less a matter of intelligence(though it may be true the most intelligent men are smarter than the most intelligent women)than emotions.

The role of biochemistry in artistic, philosophical, or other endeavors can be seen in the disproportional contribution made by homosexuals. Are gays generally more intelligent than straight people? Perhaps, but I doubt it. I think the real reason for high achievement by gays is their sense of emotional crisis, conflict, and strangeness. They don't see the world as b/w, m/f, day/night but as a twilight zone where weird and unexpected things can happen or can be glimpsed.

Indeed, one reason why conservatives suck at art and intellectualism. Their main modus operandi is normality and stability. Complacency or dogmatism rarely leads to GREAT stuff.

I would sacrifice 10k of salary just to have a male boss. 20k of salary to work in an all-male environment. I have heard many different women say on many different occasions that they themselves prefer to work in all-male environments. They said this is because there's less infighting in them.

95% of all the conflicts I've observed at work were traceable to women. Life is boring to them without infighting.

I've got a woman supervisor at my job. The man she replaced hid in his office most of the time. Whole weeks would go by without my ever seeing him. He only dealt with problems long past the point where he could no longer ignore them.

Sounds like a great boss to me. The best bosses are like the best neighbors - seldom seen and never heard. Also, have you not observed that many problems will, in fact, go away if ignored? The trick is knowing what you can ignore and for how long.

His female replacement, on the other hand, is more 'proactive'.

Sounds awful. Spare me from "proactive" bosses. Listen to me if I have a major problem (and, being a man, I promise to come to you only with major problems - I'll handle the rest myself) and otherwise leave me alone to do my job.

She has made a point of walking through the office every day and saying "hi" to everyone. She tries to affect a cheery tone.

So I have to be cheery back, right? Feh. Stay out of my face, boss.

She comes in early and stays late.

And this is good because ... why? Because it's a model for behavior I'm supposed to want to emulate? To have no interest in life other than work and (maybe) family, so that I can't think of anything better to do in the evening than work or go to bed early so I get up at the crack of dawn for work? Again, I say feh.

She has convened monthly "team meetings" where the latest developments are discussed -- this in contrast to her male predecessor who did not communicate anything.

At these meetings, is free and open discussion encouraged, even if it goes against the stream, or is everybody expected to be a good "team player" and agree with everybody else?

Uh huh. I thought so.

There are good female bosses and bad male bosses, but, with a few exceptions, women generally make terrible bosses for people who work best with minimal supervision and who have minimal tolerance for enforced conformity. Men generally make terrible bosses for people who want daily affirmation of their self-worth and lots of attention to feelings and morale, and who enjoy a cozy, faux-family environment where everybody thinks pretty much alike.

Women hate working for other women. My thought is that women are programmed by evolution to obey their fathers, brother, and husbands, so they can work for a male of any age without intrinsically resenting it. But the only woman they're programmed to obey is mom. So the only way for a female boss to have women happy to work for her is to somehow be a mom-figure. So she just about always has to be older. I don't know if I thought this notion up or I read it somewhere. Probably Steve said it long ago.

I work in financial sales where it is a winner take all system. The simple truth is that women are simply not used to the rejection that men are. Perhaps it is a conditioning of what we have to do to get laid.

This industry is full of pink collar staffers. Many women simply lack the ambition of their male colleagues. Men in such roles are doomed to beta existance and will simply either go "up or out".

The kind of women who would make good bosses stay home and boss their children and staff.

My thought is that women are programmed by evolution to obey their fathers, brother, and husbands, so they can work for a male of any age without intrinsically resenting it.

What environment would have produced this evolutionary programming exactly? The one where humans didn't have a sexual division of labor? Where on earth would you find that other than the modern world?

If women can't get along with other women in a working environment then no private household before electricity could have existed. Female labor, directed by a female authority figure, is what made much of the world go until pretty recently. I think women go crazy in offices because it's fakework and makework. The wife in Proverbs 31, Nausika in the Odyssey, the Wife of Bath, are all examples of bosses with employees. Literature is full of examples of ladies and their maids having perfectly functional professional relationships - Marmee and Hannah in Little Women is a good example, or the way Mrs Jennings is constantly aware of employment needs and possibilities in Sense and Sensibility. These are not idealized relationships, they are simply presentations of a normal relationship between women, that of employer and employee. One of the major themes of the novels of Jane Austen is the dire consequences caused by the absence of a competent lady of the house - Mrs Bennet and Lady Bertram are failures in this area and harshly judged for it.

And in case anyone thinks this is romanticization, I have been a domestic worker and employed domestic workers myself. Women get along fine in this sphere.

The problem is that despite all feminism etc, the sociology of women is terribly underdeveloped. The typical male social structures - warband, Maennerbund - are described in thousands of publications, but try to find some good analysis of a such archetypal social structure as a sewing circle, rosary circle, salon etc.

Unfortunately, women do not do groundbreaking analysis, and men are more interested in warbands than sewing circles. As the result, you need to read XIX century novels to find a passable description of this fundamental social structure.

I dislike the "evolutionary" analysis, but it is both easy to do (you do not need any data) and a backhanded way to get some teleology into modern science.

Looking at women's circles this way, the fundamental difference from warband is obvious: the potential membership is more or less fixed (there is only so much women of correct social class in the neighbourhood), and there are no sactions except ostracism and social disaproval. A pirate captain can simply beat or shoot a disobedient pirate; the most respected lady in a sewing circle must use more subtle ways to influence it.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare has sold $500 million in games (mostly to men) but a typical female oriented movie like Sex and the City will open at the box office with $50 million in sales. Yes, there is a difference between a $50 game and a $10 movie ticket, but a half billion dollars is a staggering amount of money.

Well researchers wired the brains of men and women as they played video games and learned male brains are greatly stimulated by territorial conquest even if simulated.

I would say women:1. worry more about people they know rather than people they don't know, or will know in the future.2. women are parochial and worry more about what's near than what's far.3. aren't as expansionist, and won't be as interested in entering new markets or new countries4. given the potential for awkward sexual attempts by strange men, women are more comfortable working with people from a similar culture, background and class.

I propose a female boss would work well in very closed industries like fashion and PR given the small number of people that matter (handful of models, designers, agents) since she can cultivate relationships, and would struggle as the boss of an open company like AT&T or GM since the goal of those empires is APPEALING to everyone even if they have poor taste, are bad to their wives, or are criminals.

The right in England is the aristocracy, monarchy, and Eton, and the left is everyone else.

That was generally true some time back. But not now.

Nowadays, what scares the pants of the establishment, is the Far Right and their potential voters and supporters in what is termed 'Middle England', which is generally speaking reactionary right and who are the audience that the Daily Mail is aimed at.

Compared to the Far Right, (and this is a contentious label, many consider the BNP, for example, to actually be Far Left - because they are anti-free trade, anti-globilisation protectionists) the aristocracy, Eton and the monarchy are very much multiculti lefties.

We debate culture, but they debate class.

There has been a lot of noise about class recently in Britain as Labour are playing dog whistle class politics in an effort to go back in time and get some support back from their traditional voters.

For my part, I used to be a tribal lefty but nowadays am very much a reactionary - and quite enjoy that label.

I would very much like to go back to the good old days of class war as it was considerably preferable to modern Britain which is PeeCee Stalinists and their immigrant hordes, versus the reactionaries.

At least the Toffs didn't seem to actually want to destroy the entire nation and the people that constitute it.

FWIW, I spent a couple of years mixing and working with Americans and I found the seeming lack of class consciousness when engaging with them to be extremely refreshing. Although I'd probably get the same thing with Kiwis, Aussies and Canadians and it probably has a lot to do with unfamiliarity with British class markers such as accents.

Let's not blame women's (or men's for that matter) boss-performance too much on bodily functions, be they gender-specific (men-o-pause, pms, impotence or its opposite), or bi-sexual problems (leaky bladders, alzheimers) Men and/or women greater than myself have grappled with similar problems in the workplace, so women only tread where man has gone before... Paraphrasing the words of General Buck Turgidson, preserve your bodily fluids. Blow up anybody who messes with them. Gen. Turgidson would not have mellowed with age and Mandrake would still have his hands full.

"If women can't get along with other women in a working environment then no private household before electricity could have existed."

Good god, a voice of reason (not the only one on the thread, ladies & gentlemen, wimmen & children, as John Lennon used open his act.) Somebody here said he wouldn't read past the sentence "women aren't nasty enough to be bossess blah blah." Yeah, it's a shame the world isn't as nice as it was when there were only men bosses, but you gotta move on.Still, fair enough. A little mean spirited and predictable. Let's just put mean-spirited in quotes and pat ourselves on the back for it being so bold and truthful. The English are touchy about female authority figures because their two best known "great" rulers were both queens. Not counting Margaret Thatcher. Elizabeth I and Victoria Regina. Victoria was mostly a "figure head" but Elizabeth I was a survivor with clout. You didn't mess with her or her minions if you wanted to remain un-drawn and un-quartered. I have had fine female bosses, and others who were dreadful. In fact, I've been one (not sure which kind) and don't want to be bothered again. Perhaps because I went to a convent school older women as authority figures come naturally, providing they are capable, basically kind, and possesed of a certain sense of irony and detachment. My first supervisor was a beautiful 57 year old woman who made her own clothes (fashion plate) and awed us all with her aristocratic dignity and wry smile. She was always called Mrs. as she had supposedly been married for one month, many years before. None of us were much surprised about the one month part of the story.Myrtle was loved and hated and re-loved. Her ex-employees spoke of her years later with grudging affection and when I was 19, I thought, well, when I get old I want to be like Mrs. M-yrtle D------. Actually, now that it's more common I hear less griping and declamation about female bosses than I did 20 years ago. You have more different experiences. It's a tired subject really. Yawn. But thanks for making me think again of Mrs. Myrtle D------.

Anon makes some good points, but my work experience is that women absolutely hate it when other women are in charge. Maybe my evolution explanation isn't the right one, but the phenomenon is sure there.

"Men generally make terrible bosses for people who want daily affirmation of their self-worth and lots of attention to feelings and morale, and who enjoy a cozy, faux-family environment where everybody thinks pretty much alike."

Shesh, if she wants to be a team players and have a family environment, she should work at home with her family. Duh.

> She has made a point of walking through the office every day and saying "hi" to everyone. She tries to affect a cheery tone. <

Yuck.

"Multi-tasking" is probably something she values, too - in those group-grope daily meetings. Multi-tasking used to be called being unorganized, aka scatterbrained. Now it's whooped up as the quintessence of competence and a sine qua non in any job anywhere, which is BS. Ninety-nine times out of one hundred, committed single-focus is how greatness is achieved outside of child-maintenance.

Female bosses, I have found over the years, are easily influenced and manipulated. They are highly susceptible to flattery and easily swayed.

Female bosses are unfocused. I work in banking. In one bank where I worked, I knew of a group of male analysts who, on being approached by the female department head with some large task in hand, would immediately ask her about her weekend, or ask about her daughter who was away at boarding school, or compliment her on her hair. After a while she would leave, flattered and flustered, apparently having forgotten why she wanted to talk to the analysts in the first place. I have seen this technique work time and again.

As I said, I work in banking. In the past, when I had a female boss, I was usually able to use my charm and good looks to get my own way, or to obtain preferential treatment of some kind.

The trick with a female manager is never make her forget that she is a woman first and foremost.

There is a longer tradition of political debate in Britain, and the parameters of what constitutes debate are wider there than in the US. However, this may be changing, as draconian laws relating to speech concerning race, religion, etc., are being passed. The Daily Mail's hysterical attacks on the BNP are testament to this.

Anon makes some good points, but my work experience is that women absolutely hate it when other women are in charge. Maybe my evolution explanation isn't the right one, but the phenomenon is sure there.

It's not hard. Professionally speaking, a woman in a female-dominated environment in the modern world has lost. Male-dominated environments are higher status. Women hate working under other women because the modern world is all about maintaining the constant illusion that everyone is still sexually appealing and the courtship stage goes on forever. People intuit this is so even if they can't articulate it - note the multiple references to menopause in this thread. In the past, people had real lives, they didn't go to offices to have a setting in which playact neverending social and sexual dramas. Women get along just fine when they're *actually working.*

"A pirate captain can simply beat or shoot a disobedient pirate; the most respected lady in a sewing circle must use more subtle ways to influence it."

I would add to this that in civilized male society conflict is relatively rare, but sometimes carries the potential of violence. In female society conflict never stops, but has almost no potential for violence. It seems that every woman is always in conflict with all the other women she knows well. There is no loyalty beyond that to one's children and certainly no friendships as men understand them. Women get very bored without a constant background noise of non-violent conflict.

"It seems that every woman is always in conflict with all the other women she knows well. There is no loyalty beyond that to one's children and certainly no friendships as men understand them."

My goodness. Now it's not just women bosses, it's all womankind. We're into John Calvin territory or one of those early Church Fathers--Tetronius the Woman-hater, I believe.--and to think lately I've heard mostly men angry at feminists for belittling male friendships. Where did they get that idea?

I know it must be comforting for you to think as you do, and I'm sure you can furnish chapter and verse, but you contradict so much about my world, and countless people I have read of and know of. Conflict is common among women but so is intense identification, love and admiration. Friendship is a human trait, not a gender specific one.What a dismal, murky space you inhabit. Good luck with all that.

I think its not because the british press is like that but because the Daily mail is like that. It is a right wing, non-upper class not PC publication which gets a dreadful hammering by the BBC & the more respectable press of all sides. Also the paper that didn't believe in global warming, Iraq having WMDs & mass immigration among other things.

I would add to this that in civilized male society conflict is relatively rare, but sometimes carries the potential of violence.

I submit that this is not incidental.

FWIW, I spent a couple of years mixing and working with Americans and I found the seeming lack of class consciousness when engaging with them to be extremely refreshing.

Americans are class conscious, but part of our identity is a taboo on class consciousness (e.g., naked class consciousness isn't classy). So we have to be indirect about it. But yes, in my experience we're much less class conscious than Brits. Maybe we're more flexible about defining it?

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